#8 Think positive

A famous quote of the Dailai Lama is: “See the positive side, the potential, and make an effort.” 

I have to admit that it is quite easy to fall prey to negative thinking. Having negative thoughts can only bring you pain, something that everyone has experienced many times throughout their life. 

Negative thoughts drain you of energy and keep you from being and enjoying the present moment. The more you give in to your negative thoughts, the stronger they become. A small negative thought can become a huge and ugly problem. Similarly, a small positive thought can have the same effect blossoming into a beautiful outcome.

When we start to have negative thoughts, it’s difficult to stop them. And it’s much easier said than done to shift your focus to positive thoughts. But it’s the only way to avoid going down a painful and unnecessary path.

The most important thing is to change the tone of your thoughts from negative to positive, it's not as hard as we think. For example, instead of seeing things as issues to solve it would be positive to see it as challenges to overcome.

A little thing that surprisingly works is to place some post-it with positive quotes or sentences on the fridge, mirror, computer, where you can see them everyday, to keep in mind to stay positive.

#7 Travel

Travel is good for lots of things, but it can also increase your well-being - and sometimes in the long-term. Whether you are traveling for business or with your family, traveling can make you a happier person by building self-confidence, providing new experiences and memories, breaking routine and allowing you to meet people from very different places.

You can become more self-confident as traveling can make you deal with unexpected situations.

Even if you're the kind of person to plan things to the letter and by advance, things can take a surprise turn. Whatever happens, there is a way around the problem and knowing that you can deal with these situations is a big boost to self-confidence and your happiness.

Also, being away from things we often take for granted -family, close friends, home- makes us appreciate them more. Calling home becomes something to look forward to: your parents would be more than happy to hear about your travel stories.

Making new friends become easier as people are more open to talk to strangers on a bus or strike up conversation in a bar for example. When people are away from home, there seem to be less boundaries to cross, strangers can become your friends whether it’s a local curious to know where you’ve come from or travellers keen to have someone with whom to share a taxi. Social interactions make us happier and increasing our social circle allow us to learn more.

#6 Spend some time with your family

We don’t chose our familly. In any case, not where she comes from. But the family we are part of is our number 1 source of happiness.

Some researchs conducted on happiness have shown that regardless of age, gender, culture, socio-economic background, it is indeed love, friendship and parenting that are the first ingredients of happiness.

The meaning we give to our life depends on three things:interpersonal relationships (the heart), beliefs and values (the head) and action, what we like to do (the hand).

For many, family is seen as a consulting space, support and solidarity. More globally, it is seen as the first

space of trust for individuals far ahead of the public and governing bodies. A safe space to share ideas, 

moments and memories.

I think we all know we love our family, but in our busy life we sometimes forgot how good it feels to spend

some time as a family and share some family moments. We all should realise that making room for our family

is essential and that it can make us really happier.